Page 38 of Nightingale

“W

here is your brother?” The question was intruding but didn’t catch him off guard as he filled the planter with water from a metal can, pouring it deep into the roots of the blood-red flower as his father emerged from the curved archway. The stones were carefully stacked atop one another to create the leaning bend but time had not been kind to them, as it had not been kind to them all.

Cracks appeared in all things eventually, no matter how strong.

The entire garden was a strange shape in his opinion, with the oval yard that tapered to points at each end and the trees that curled around them in a crescent moon pattern. There were bushes along the empty space windows, where ladies of the court could sit along the granite benches and admire the lovely colours. Stone planters sat against the wall and were filled with all sorts of flowers. From rich purple hydrangeas to yellow daffodils, white moon-flowers and pink roses with an envious petal shape.

He came out here often on the days where it felt as though he wasn’t wanted within Hawksmoor, the hours where nobody spoke to him and the minutes when it seemed he might have been forgotten. There was a serenic sort of peace that filtered through the air, like the plants could be kinder than those whom he shared blood with. They never judged him, never said awfulthings for the sake of wounding him. Instead they craned their green necks towards him in admiration and desire as he fed their thirst and clipped the rotten bits away.

Sometimes he wished he could clip the rotten, molding, horrible parts of his family away.

If only it were that easy.

“You’re going to have to be more specific, as I have several of those, thanks to you.” Castil sullenly commented as he pulled the watering can out of the wet soil and set it aside for now. He wiped his hands along his trousers before glimpsing to his right to see the King impatiently tapping his foot along the pathway.

“Rian.”

The only name that made sense, since none of his other brothers were gone. But still he played the guessing game with the man, interested to see where this conversation would go.

“Ah,thatone. He’s gone.” Castil implied in a bland voice that suggested he had far more interesting things to do. He didn’t, but it gave him a pinch of thrill.

“Yes, I’ve gathered that much.” His father was easily irritable and he may have been tempted to mess around with him for as long as possible without petting the angry streak that wouldn’t be far behind, “Butwhere?”

“How should I know?”

“Because the guards reported that the pair of you have been spending quite a bit of time together recently.”

A shadowed horror filled his cells, slinking between every gap in his system as he understood that he wasn’t the only one that lurked in the shadows and overheard everything. Castil knew that men gathered information and handed it over to their sovereign as well, but he’d thought himself careful enough to avoid suspicion. Clearly, not.

“I see.”

“Do you?” The King interrogated.

It was a lethally soft threat, and not a cleverly worded one. Though, the man didn’t need to conceal any warnings or obvious threats, since he wasn’t the sort to hide behind words and walls like a shivering coward. Instead, he made his notions bold and spread them wide, for all to understand just what sort of leader he was.

Unmoving, savage, desolate.

Ice and stone melded together to form something worse, colder. Marbled frost.

“Surprisingly so.” Castil bent forward and clipped off the excess weeds that grew within his prized possession. They were annoying but not something that he couldn’t easily deal with. “There was no obnoxious presence that hung around every sentence that fell off my tongue.”

“He did seem overly fond of you.”

“And I of him.” Castil traded the watering can for a set of pruning shears from the side and angled them correctly around the thriving plant. “Was it terrible of us to find some sort of bizarre connection? Or are we all supposed to look at the others with nothing but murder and foul intentions in order to better the feud you’ve so desperately raised between us?”

“I suppose I should have suspected some sort of weak link between any of my blood.” He sighed, as if disappointed that emotions ran strong. As if he wanted nothing more than to have his sons spill blood, instead of feelings and the potential for brotherly love. “Why do you waste your talents on such garbage? Planting flowers and trimming off weeds is not what I raised you to do.”

“You’re one to talk about waste, when you’ve created an abundance of heirs because the ones you currently have arenot up to par.” He articulated coldly as he began to trim away the excess foliage that he could just rip away with a light pull. There was something oddly titillating about holding the very thingthat could end a life, the one to his right if he was honest with himself, and using them instead to trim away foliage.

“Those were all necessary.Youare all necessary. Don’t think that I’m alone in that sentiment when Queen Casta across the border has the same mindset. I believe she’s even topped my number of heirs by one or two.” The King tried to assure him but Castil brushed it off as easily as an annoying hair stuck to his fine clothes.

He went on. “How did you expect me to raise a Prince worthy of Carylim without properly showing him the bloodthirsty ways of this country? It’s going to take years, decades even before this war comes to an end. It will outlive me and my Golden Heir. Which means that whomever I chose to replace my rule needs to be able to handle the nitty gritty details, to not be afraid to get their hands coated in crimson, and needs to be willing to take a life when it’s required. ”

“If you say so.” Castil droned.

This meeting was pointless and his rare entertainment of getting a rise out of the regal man was coming to a decreasing halt of pleasure. There was only so much he could withdraw within a thin line of caution and warning.

“I didn’t come out here to discuss meaningless topics of conversation with you. I came out here to find out where Rian has gone and why he’s left no trace to be found.”

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